John Bolton & Russia's chemical weapons

Just because I can, I want to emphasize again how the failed ideology of anti-controls adherents has served to undermine long-standing US policy towards combating weapons proliferation. In the process, the disingenuous and outright fraudulent rhetoric of John Bolton has played a key role.

This post focuses on the breakdown in Russia's Chemical Weapons Convention obligations over funding, and John Bolton's role in abetting this problem. Russia's chemical weapons inventory is some 40,000 tons. During his 2001 confirmation hearing, John Bolton was nailed by senators when he implied that US money used to secure and destroy Russia's WMD stockpiles should be conditioned on Russian behavior, specifically Russia's exports to Iran. Bolton backtracked after he was caught mischaracterizing an important report to support of his views. Bolton then pledged to work with Congress in a bipartisan fashion before initiating any fundamental changes in CTR policy. (See this and this.)

But in a subsequent 14 August 2001 interview, Underscretary John Bolton had this to say:

Q: We have been involved in helping Russia to destroy its stock of chemical weapons. What exactly has been our role in this, and what's the future of this effort?

MR. BOLTON: This is another subject we want to discuss with the Russians because they've said they perceive difficulties in meeting the targets, the destruction targets that are contemplated in the Chemical Weapons Convention, which would pose a further problem under the CWC in terms of its implementation.

We've been willing and have put up substantial amounts of money for destruction purposes. To destroy the weapons in a responsible fashion is not easy and it's not cheap, and we understand they've got economic constraints they face, and so we and other Westerners have been willing to put up funds to create the facility, where you destroy chemical weapons safely. But I think there's concern in Congress and concern in Western Europe that the Russians are not as enthusiastic about this as maybe we are, and concern that we're providing them with funds, that allows them to divert funds for other purposes, money being fungible.

I remain hopeful that the Russians will remain just as intent as we are on complying with the Chemical Weapons Convention, on destroying their stocks. And I think we're prepared to support additional U.S. resources to help them do that, assuming we can see the level of commitment from them that we need, and assuming that some of our European friends, in particular, put up some financial resources as well. [My emph.]

Where to begin? People who have slogged through my previous posts already know that the crap Bolton was peddling here infuriates me to no end, and his comments implying congressional support for these views challenges reality. (I wish I had dug this up weeks ago since it only supports the point of this long and convoluted post; see that post for all arguments and counter-arguments on this issue.)

First off, Bolton's munificient assertions about US contributions only holds true because the anti-controls faction he represents hadn't gotten its way in the mid-1990s when the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program began addressing the problem of securing Russia's decrepit WMD infrastructure.

Second, Bolton is echoing his refuted comments before the Senate Foreign Relations committee in 2001, where he misrepresented the Baker-Cutler panel's conclusions (see this and this), which called for upping CTR spending to $30 billion, by taking from it one line acknowledging the potential of fungibility which he then generalizes to validate stopping funds.

Third, echoing Frank Gaffney, Bolton sells this bizarre notion that (assumed) Russian indifference to stockpile security somehow validates American complacency. What I mean is, the idea that a perceived lack of "enthusiaism" on their part validates policy inaction on our part because it's their fault.

Fourth, Bolton's barely concealed hostility for the entire Nunn-Lugar policy is evident, as he builds conditions into it that demand others take initiative. This further justifies inaction.

Fifth, this came only months after his 2001 nomination hearing, and it is already evident that Bolton was ignoring the feedback he got from senators there despite his comments that he respected bipartisan engagement with Congress, and instead was unilaterally entrenching the policies and attitudes that left Russia threatening to pull out of the CWC entirely in October 2002.

During his tenure as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, John Bolton didn't overturn many treaties --except for ABM-- but on a variety of weapons control programs in his portfolio he diligently worked to paralyze the implementation and undermine the legitimacy of international compacts that secured and destroyed biological, chemical and nuclear materials. In some respects this was through public shifts in policy under a Bush Administration that has scuttled on-going negotiations and thwarted new ones, in other respects it was done opaquely through Bolton's management of treaties and agreements to which the United States was obligated prior to his tenure.

While the rhetoric of "case-by-case" review and "specific" or "particular" objections is meant to thwart the public recognition of an unstated Government policy, this is what a certain faction within the Bush Administration was aiming at. The public enunciation of this policy by the President would rightly bring public opprobrium on all their heads, especially after the President of the United States acknowledged that nuclear proliferation is the greatest security threat facing the country.

On many fronts this faction has been successful, but what a failure that has been.